


What He Carries

by floweranza



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Camping, Gen, Male Friendship, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-20
Updated: 2011-11-20
Packaged: 2017-10-26 08:35:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/280946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/floweranza/pseuds/floweranza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As they sit outside the cabin the first night of the training camp, they pass a cigarette back and forth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What He Carries

**Author's Note:**

> **Jun** : _When I first got there, and Leader said, "Hey, we've been waiting!" and came up to me... When I say it was Leader being leader-like, I don't mean it was Ohno-kun being like Ohno-kun, but our team leader being like a team leader._  
>  **Ohno** : _I thought he would show up looking a lot more tired, and that we were forcing him to come against his will, but he came up to us smiling. I was glad for that. It made me happy._ (Taiji, MMA 33.)

Nino sits up with a sharp intake of breath, throwing the covers back and blinking blearily into the darkness. It's very, very dark. It takes a second for his racing mind to understand and his eyes to adjust, but then he gives a low breath. _That's right_ , he thinks, _we're at the training camp_.

He spares a look at his watch. It's two in the morning.

Nino shivers, pulling his blankets up around his shoulders. He's never really gone camping before, and it's probably the strange, new sounds of the forest that had woken him up. Sho and Aiba's familiar breathing washes over his mind and he relaxes even more, but then he realizes: there's someone gone.

Ohno's covers are all pushed to the side and the bed is empty. Nino pauses only to grab his warmest jacket before heading outside.

The cold forest air slaps him in the face. The rustling of leaves and the dark all around (except for the small pinpricks of light where the staff are staying in the distance) feel claustrophobic. But then Nino sees the small, sturdy figure sitting on the steps of the cabin, the red, glowing tip of a cigarette visible for a brief second before Ohno brings it up to his lips.

"Leader," he says, sitting down next to him.

"Ah," Ohno startles a little, "Nino!" He hands him the cigarette wordlessly. Nino takes a long drag, watching it light up brightly before he hands it back. He gazes up through the trees before looking down and noticing Ohno has his cellphone cradled lightly in one palm.

Nino nudges Ohno's shoulder with his own. "Still trying to reach him? It's late, you know."

Ohno shakes his head. The cigarette sends a small dot of orange light dancing across his cheek. "I was thinking about things and couldn't sleep."

Nino blinks. But then he thinks that, at this time, it's not much of a surprise. He stretches to crack his knuckles above his head (like every sound it's magnified, slightly too loud in the darkness) and then pulls his knees to his chest, winding his arms around them. "First time we haven't been followed around by cameras."

Ohno sends him that sideways smile. They sit quietly for a while, the smoke from the cigarette luminous as it travels upwards between them and then disappears. Ohno's warmth next to him is a blaze like always, but the night air is still cold. Nino shivers once and the other's arm is immediately around his slight shoulders.

Ohno passes the cigarette again. "And you?"

"Couldn't sleep," Nino agrees.

They fall into silence again. A twig breaks in the distance and the leaves rustle. Nino breathes the smoke in and then out. This is the best measure of how well two people know each other; whether they can have a conversation complete with comfortable silences.

Ohno slides one foot against Nino's contemplatively. "Do you think," he starts, then stops, gaze going towards the cellphone in his hands.

Nino looks too. "That Jun took on more work so he wouldn't have to come to the training camp?" He pauses. "No, I don't. It's been getting better between him and Hikaru-san."

"Okay," Ohno says softly. But he keeps looking down at the cellphone like it will answer him, like Jun will suddenly call and say he'll show up at this very second. Nino pulls his DS out of his jacket and flips it open, but doesn't turn it on. He doesn't need to see the buttons; his fingers fall on them with long habit. He waits because he knows Ohno still has more to say and Nino is a good listener.

"I was scared."

The DS rests lightly in Nino's palm, a familiar weight. He lets the cigarette hang from his fingers. "Scared?"

"When I went to talk to him," Ohno elaborates. "There was a cameraman with me. Jun-chan looked angry. He didn't even care about it. He looked like... before."

Nino knows what Ohno is talking about. There had been a time when Jun had been deeply unhappy being within Arashi, so much that mostly all of Nino's memories of a 19-year-old Jun are snaps and scowls. To contrast his professionalism now to that time is always a shock.

He sighs, tucking himself closer under Ohno's arm. He taps the ash off the cigarette and gives it back to the other man. The cover of Nino's DS flashes, appearing stark white. Ohno's profile is muted in the darkness; his knitted brows are pronounced in dark shadows. "He's okay now."

Ohno's voice turns to a hush, almost inaudible over the small sounds around them. "I never wanted to make any of you so upset."

" _Eh?_ "

Nino jerks away from him, staring hard at the other man's face. The sudden shift of his weight on the wood makes it give a protesting groan. Ohno looks terribly sad. The dangle of the cigarette (burnt down almost to the filter) from his fingers looks helpless.

That had come out of nowhere. "You didn't do anything."

Ohno shakes his head. "No. It's my fault. I said that we should all row and they took me seriously."

It's sometimes easy to forget how self-conscious Ohno is, how much he dwells on what he sees as his own shortcomings when Ohno's default setting is the most amiable of personalities. Nino fixes his eyes to a moth that is dancing around the cigarette tip. Then he drops his DS between his feet and pulls Ohno into the manliest of hugs. "That's your charm, Leader."

"What kind of leader am I," Ohno mumbles into Nino's shoulder. "I didn't even ask. I didn't even notice when you didn't have anything to do."

"Hey..."

"Haven't even apologized to the staff about being late for other work all the time."

Nino scowls.

"Oi." He pushes Ohno away with both hands on Ohno's shoulders until he can look into the other's dark eyes. "You can't notice everything. And you're a good leader," he adds gently. "The best. And the only."

The pressures Ohno makes himself carry associated with being Arashi's leader must be so heavy. He's carried them since that silly game of janken. He doesn't believe them, Nino thinks, when they tell him that just his presence is always enough for them. Ohno grounds them and makes them realize how lucky they all are.

"Don't you think this has been bringing us closer together?" Nino continues. "It's good." He plucks the cigarette out of Ohno's fingers and drops it under his boot, flattening it into the gravely ground. "I think our leader made a good decision."

He squeezes Ohno's shoulder and moves back to sit beside him, side to side. Ohno touches his knee fleetingly.

Nino hasn't been noticing where they are throughout the conversation. All of a sudden it all comes back; they're sitting on the wooden steps of a cabin in a dark patch of woods. It's still cold but the sky is actually lighter from when Nino last looked, gone from a deep indigo to a smoother wash of blue. Nino has never felt physically farther from his profession than he feels now.

But he also feels close to it because Ohno is there and it's not bad, because they're Arashi and its leader is perfect.

"Okay," Ohno says and smiles abashedly, still a bit sad but decidedly chastised.

Silence surrounds them again. It feels better now. Nino's not sleepy at all.

He rests his cheek on one palm, absentmindedly looking at the red cinders of the cigarette still sparkling on the rocky ground. "I'm hungry. I really want one of those cheap milk buns."

He turns towards Ohno. Ohno's countenance is completely blank. Then he screws his face up in complete seriousness.

"Some people have said my face looks like a milk bun."

Nino can't help it. He starts laughing, high and clear. It's an abrupt break in the silence of the trees but it sounds happy, not entirely out of place. It only takes a second before Ohno starts laughing with him, both their voices echoing up and up. The creak of the door interrupts them and Nino looks up from where he's stuffing his cold hands down the back of a squirming Ohno's jacket. Sho squints at them, eyes bleary and hair sticking up like some angry rooster.

"What are you two doing?" Sho's a light sleeper. With the whiskers appearing on his cheeks and chin he looks even more rumpled. "So loud."

Nino blinks at him. "Leader said something funny."

"Uh-huh." Sho grunts and scratches his stomach. The good thing, Nino thinks, is that he probably won't remember this when he wakes up. "Just be quiet and go to bed!" He turns and shuts the door behind him definitively.

They start laughing again, more quietly. "He was mad!" Ohno whispers, arching his back away from the cold press of Nino's fingertips.

Nino grins at Ohno, wiggling his fingers before withdrawing his hands.

"Jun-kun will show up tomorrow," he says. "He definitely will."

Ohno nods. Nino picks up his DS. Without another word, they head inside.


End file.
